The Electoral PactCrisis Desperation Drives Merkel to Campaign for Sarkozy

Chancellor Angela Merkel's move to help President Nicolas Sarkozy in his bid for re-election is unprecedented. But so too is the European debt crisis. Berlin is driven by the fear that a Socialist president in Paris may overturn its strategy to rescue the euro. But Merkel's campaign assistance poses risks. By SPIEGEL Staff

It looked almost as if it could have been a wedding when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked into the conference hall of the European Council building in Brussels last Monday. They nodded at each other and exchanged pecks on the cheek, the other heads of state and government moved aside.

The two, of course, were not in Brussels to be betrothed. Rather, they were the main characters at yet another European Union summit. This time, they were seeking support for their fiscal pact, which together they had hammered out in the hopes that it could contribute to saving the EU and its common currency.

Once the pact had received the necessary backing, Merkel was visibly pleased -- and she made no attempt to hide her affinity for Sarkozy. "My political views are well known," she said following the summit. And then came a sentence that had been previously unimaginable for a German chancellor. "Nicolas Sarkozy supported me during my campaign. In the same way, I will now pay back that which he gave me."

The sober chancellor and the peripatetic president have established a pact, the likes of which has never before been seen in the Franco-German relationship. Merkel has decided to openly campaign for her partner in Paris. For Sarkozy, she is discarding the reserve that chancellors have for decades felt proper when it comes to democratic elections outside German borders. When Sarkozy begins stumping, she will be standing next to him on stage -- at least that is the plan.

Sarkozy, for his part, plans to present his partner from across the Rhine as a shining example. The German debt brake, the German social reforms, the German productivity -- France should try to emulate all of it. Last week, during a one-hour interview on television, Sarkozy mentioned the word Germany fully 15 times. Even close party allies feel that Sarkozy's weakness for Germany is becoming an obsession.

Thinking Without Borders?

One could interpret the bond between Merkel and Sarkozy as a new level in the friendship between Berlin and Paris. What is wrong when two leaders merge to form a kind of ruling duo? Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle hammered out the Elysée Treaty, also known as the Friendship Treaty. Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand held hands over the graves of Verdun. And "Merkozy" are now making real what the supporters of a united Europe have long dreamed of: European domestic politics, thinking without borders.

That, at least, is the charitable version of the situation, a point of view which both Berlin and Paris have been seeking to promulgate. "It is a sign of European integration when Chancellor Merkel campaigns with President Sarkozy," says Ruprecht Polenz, a foreign policy specialist with Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

In truth, however, Merkel and Sarkozy are being driven by desperation. The president would seem to be hopelessly behind his challenger Francois Hollande in surveys. A repeat of the German job miracle in France -- Sarkozy is hoping that such a promise will attract voters.

Merkel, for her part, is horrified at the prospect of a President Hollande. The Socialist is in favor of euro bonds and opposed to the anchoring of a balanced budget amendment -- the so-called "debt brake" -- in the French constitution. Hollande also doesn't think much of Merkel's fiscal pact, which she recently managed to push through in Brussels. Should Sarkozy's re-election bid fail, then Merkel's European strategy could fail as well, the Chancellery fears.

Merkel's Equal

As a result, a kind of secret diplomacy has been underway for months between the CDU headquarters in Berlin and the offices of Sarkozy's UMP party in Paris. Indeed, the CDU is expending a similar amount of energy on the election as it might on an important regional election in Germany.

The decisive link between the two parties is French Agricultural Minister Bruno Le Maire, an expert on Germany within the French government. In recent months, he has traveled to Berlin twice for meetings with CDU General Secretary Hermann Gröhe. Once, he met with Peter Altmaier, the senior CDU politician who is one of Merkel's most important advisors. Le Maire's meetings focused on the overall strategy for Operation Campaign Aid with the UMP deputy general secretary, Hervé Novelli, responsible for the details.

The French visitors explained Sarkozy's campaign strategy in detail. The president wants to appear as a leader who gets things done, as an architect of the efforts to save the European common currency. The French should see him as a man who is Merkel's equal. They are desperate to avoid having him be seen as just another European leader forced to beg Brussels for billions to shore up their dismal budget -- a request which not only infringes on national sovereignty but also on dignity.

But how is that goal to be achieved? Just recently, the rating agency Standard & Poor's withdrew France's triple-A credit rating. Even worse from a French point of view, Germany was allowed to keep its top rating. In addition, the French economy is suffering mightily, making it difficult for Sarkozy to claim that France is in the same league as Germany.

A List of Possible Dates

German and French advisors quickly agreed that, if the numbers aren't quite right, then at least the images should be. That was the origin of the plan to send Merkel to France to have her appear with him on the campaign trail. The chancellor of a booming Germany (until recently at least) should fill Sarkozy's tired campaign with life. That is the idea.

The cooperative campaign kicks off on Monday, with a joint Sarkozy-Merkel television interview to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF and the French station France 2. The Salon Murat inside the Elysée Palace, with its chandeliers and golden pillars, where the interview will be filmed, will lend the occasion its required elegance.

And that's just the beginning. As yet, no concrete dates have been set, but Sarkozy's strategists are in the process of working out the details. When CDU General Secretary Gröhe travelled to Paris for the launch of the UMP campaign just over a week ago, his French colleague Jean-Francois Copé presented him with a list of possible dates.

Merkel is looking forward to joint appearances with the president, Gröhe said during his speech to the UMP delegates to frenetic applause. The next day, the French daily Journal du Dimanche bore the headline: "Merkel Votes for Sarkozy."